An adult male was shot in the shoulder and a teenager was shot in the foot, said Keith Maddox, assistant fire chief.

Both victims were taken to area hospitals with non-life threatening injuries.

Initial reports from witnesses indicate a man was running through the park shooting at people, Maddox said.

Based on descriptions provided by witnesses, officers were able to find the 21-year-old gunman, who then fled on foot, Garcia said. Officers captured the suspect after a brief foot pursuit.

Jamal Dion Lafortune was arrested on aggravated battery with a firearm, possession of a firearm/ammo by convicted felon, discharging a firearm in public and resisting an officer without violence charges.

A woman who was brutally attacked by her husband in front of their children early Thursday morning died overnight, according to Hillsborough County sheriff’s officials.

Michelle Dukes, 34, was airlifted in critical condition to Tampa General Hospital from her street in Riverview on Thursday morning after her husband, Keith Dukes, 48, allegedly slit her throat and shot her multiple times in the upper body, the sheriff’s office said. He now faces a charge of second-degree murder.

After the incident Thursday morning, Hillsborough deputies found Keith Dukes near the family’s home, standing in the Alafia River. He told them he did it because his wife tried to take their daughters away.

“My life is over,” Keith Dukes told deputies as they apprehended him, according to a probable cause affidavit. “I wish you could have just killed me. Just take me to jail.” According to the affidavit, he had been separated from his wife for about a year.

The couple’s daughters, ages 7, 13 and 14, were waiting in the car for a ride to school when the violence broke out. Keith Dukes first stabbed or cut his wife in the throat inside their home at 8818 Van Fleet Road, a quiet suburban street with no sidewalks and ranch homes. She ran from the house screaming for help and her daughters, who saw her from the car, ran with her, Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee said at a news conference Thursday morning.

A passing Waste Management truck driver saw the family running toward him, begging for help, so he called 911. Michelle Dukes was covered in blood.

“I saw a cut going from one side of her neck to the other,” the driver, Jason Alvarez, said.

A neighbor who had come outside after he heard commotion gave the dispatcher the address. In the meantime, the family took refuge in another neighbor’s home.

A short time later, Alvarez heard a gunshot. Keith Dukes had broken into the neighbor’s home where his wife and children were hiding. He fired three shots, according to the affidavit, before a witness wrestled the gun from him.

The children were uninjured, Gee said, but surely traumatized. They were staying with a family member Thursday night.

The Lakewood Estates neighborhood is filled with families and children. On any given day, you’ll see kids climbing trees and playing on swing sets.

That’s why news of a residential gun range did not sit well with neighbors.

“I don’t know if this idiot is going to start popping off rounds,” said Patrick Leary. “I’m furious.”

Moms and dads are extremely upset after their 21-year-old neighbor, Joseph Carannante, told them he built a homemade gun range.

“I don’t want to hurt myself or any neighbors. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I just want to use this as my enjoyment,” Carannante told News Channel 8. “I don’t want to have to go to a gun range, when I can just go outside my door.”

Carannante wants to fire his 9mm in his St. Petersburg yard, which happens to be just feet away from children. According to St. Petersburg Police, legally he’s allowed to do it.

“I wouldn’t have done all this if I didn’t know the reaction,” Carannante told us, who claims he has all the proper paperwork for his weapon.

He says he will inform neighbors when he intends to fire his gun, which he hopes to do every other weekend.

Residents tell us that’s not good enough.

Leary added, “You heard him say, I’ll tell the neighbors when I’m getting ready to fire. What, do we gather our children and hide? Ridiculous. C’mon.”

Another parent, Kendra O’Connor, promises she will fight this every step of the way.

”I don’t consider it responsible, I don’t consider it reasonable. He’s asking me to go inside my house, go to the other side of the house, as he’s informing me he’ll fire his weapon,” she said.

Neighbors tell 8 On Your Side they feel as though they’re being held hostage by this 21-year-old, who they claim is putting everyone’s lives at risk.

In fact, residents have enlisted the help of their neighbor, County Commissioner Ken Welch.

“Even to the most pro-gun person, to have a gun range in the middle of a residential neighborhood doesn’t make any sense at all. I’m hoping we can get to some common ground and common sense,” Welch told 8 on your side Sunday night.

Welch has already made calls to the St. Petersburg Police Department and the city attorney. He plans to look into the issue.

“People don’t want this near their homes,” he said.

Meanwhile, police admit they’ve been to Carannante’s home and that he is obeying the law. They tell us they will “monitor the situation closely.”

Machine Gun America attraction to open in Kissimmee
Visitors can pull the trigger at Central Florida’s “first Automatic Adrenaline Attraction” later this month when Machine Gun America opens on the U.S. Highway 192 tourist strip.
“If I was teaching somebody to shoot, this isn’t even the Reader’s Digest version … this is just a taste … really just the thrill of it,” Wes Doss, the attraction’s safety and training director, told me.

But that’s precisely the problem.

It’s not that Doss doesn’t care about safety. He does. And he says the attraction is designed to be as safe as possible.

Allowing someone as young as 13 (with parental permission) to walk in off the street without any firearms experience and shoot a fully automatic weapon shouldn’t be an attraction at all.

Firing a machine gun should be left to people who know what they’re doing.

Not novices who have a little energy and money left after a day at the Magic Kingdom and decide they want to blow away some zombies or gangsters before heading back to the hotel.

That’s not just my opinion.

Take it from Ernie Myers, an Orlando attorney and firearms instructor.

“Firearms should not be used as a substitute for amusement-park rides,” said Myers, who is also vice president of the Central Florida Rifle and Pistol Club.

Myers is a Second Amendment advocate. And he enjoys shooting for fun in competitions.

Still, he doesn’t like the idea of giving just anyone access to a fully automatic weapon.

“It’s the ‘Ooohhh, isn’t this a cool thing to do,’ without having the gravitas of understanding what you are doing.”

A machine designed to kill shouldn’t double as vacation bucket-list item. Or be treated like a toy.

Something doesn’t seem right about pulling over on U.S. Highway 192 — across from the carnival games and bumper cars of Old Town and next to a Denny’s — plunking down some cash and picking up an automatic weapon without any real training.

But this is America. And what Machine Gun America is doing is perfectly legal.
I also believe Doss, the attraction’s safety director, when he says it operates as safely as possible.

He says a trained safety officer will have one hand on shooters’ shoulders at all times, prepared to take control of the weapon if necessary.

But just because something is possible doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

And mistakes can be fatal.

Last summer a 9-year-old girl accidentally shot her instructor in the head, killing him, while she shot an Uzi at a firearms tourist attraction near Las Vegas.

Doss said the death was a “complete and total lapse of safety on the instructor’s part” and called the circumstances a “smear on everybody’s faces.”

At the very least, the instructor’s death shows how little room there is for error.

I’d say the same thing about NASCAR’s Richard Petty Driving Experience or Skydive DeLand if they allowed people to just walk in off the street and jump out of plane on their own or roar around the track at more than 100 mph.

But they don’t.

Skydive DeLand requires jumpers to be at least 18 years old. And first-timers get at least 20 minutes of instruction for a tandem jump during which they do nothing except ride along with an experienced instructor. First-timers who want to jump solo must go through a six-hour ground school.

The driving experience in Central Florida requires drivers to be 18 and sit through an hour of instruction before Petty wannabes can take the wheel for a few laps.

At Machine Gun America, however, the focus isn’t on instruction, which lasts a few minutes. It’s pretending you’re Rick Grimes. Or James Bond. Or Scarface.

The attraction very much plays on what customers think they know about guns from watching movies and television.

A Florida sheriff called for calm after a 28-year-old unarmed black man in a stolen car was shot and critically wounded early on Monday by a white officer, after witness reports that the man had his hands up and amid racially charged protests nationwide about police violence.

“I ask everyone to not rush to judgment and allow the investigation to be completed,” Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said at a news conference in Orlando.

Demings, who himself is African American and was surrounded by six religious leaders from the black community, said investigators have found some eyewitness accounts that conflict with that of the officer involved.

Witnesses at the apartment complex said that the men had their hands up when the deputy opened fire, according to local media reports.

Cities across the United States have seen major protests in recent days after grand juries declined to indict anyone in the deaths of two unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers in New York and Ferguson, Missouri.
After locating a stolen car at an apartment complex just after midnight on Monday, Sergeant Robert McCarthy fired three shots, one of which hit Cedric Bartee.

Demings said Bartee failed to comply with McCarthy’s commands and “made extensive furtive movements,” making the deputy fear for his safety.

Bartee underwent surgery and was in stable but critical condition late in the afternoon, the sheriff said. A second man in the car was arrested unhurt.

The shooting also comes only a few days after a 32-year-old Latino man was shot and killed in a car by an Orlando detective investigating a burglary. Police said the detective opened fire after he saw Alejandro Noel Cordero had a gun.

On Monday Demings said he was trying to be transparent in holding the press conference “because of the backdrop of everything happening in the country at this time.”

He added: “It’s concerning to me” how the public might react.

Bartee had a history of arrests on at least 45 charges since 1999, according to a list provided by the sheriff, but the deputy was not aware of his background at the time of the shooting, Demings said.

McCarthy has been reassigned to administrative duties for at least a week, and the shooting is being investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement as part of a standard procedure. The FDLE is also investigating Cordero’s shooting.

A Pinellas Park man died this morning after police say he accidentally shot himself in the face during a dispute with his wife.

Police responding to 5271 87th Ave. N. just after 6 a.m. found several family members inside and outside the residence, and 57-year-old Dennis Eugene Emery with facial injuries consistent with a gunshot wound.

Emery was pronounced dead at the scene, police say.

During an argument with his wife, police say Emery retrieved a gun and threatened to shoot one of the family’s dogs.

Emery pulled the gun’s hammer back as if he were going to fire the gun, police say. But as he started to release it back to a safe position, the gun discharged as it was pointed at his face.

According to records, Pinellas Park police have had 34 contacts with Emery since 2012, including three arrests in a five-day period from Oct. 12-17 on charges including domestic battery, aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and leaving the scene of a crash.